


The Art of Growing Things

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [24]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Humor, Gardens & Gardening, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Metaphors, Misunderstandings, Pining, Puns & Word Play, Reunions, Romantic Gestures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25313515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: “There's still a lot to do, anyway,” she murmurs dismissively.“No help from your boyfriend?” asks Din.“He's not the sort of boyfriend who helps much around the house.” She glances back to give him an odd grin. “He kind of just... stands there, you know?”Din can't quite believe his own ears. How can someone kind and hard-working like Cara be with someone who won't even lift a finger for her? She should know she deserves better than this. She should want better than this, someone who works and sweats by her side and collapses in bed with her at the end of a long day, exhausted but content.“He sounds like a jerk,” Din mumbles to himself. He thought Cara was out of earshot, but she spins around as he says it.“Oh, for the love of-” she groans, then stops to let out an impatient sigh. The look on her face is both exasperated and strangely laced with mirth.“Come with me, you idiot.”[ Meet Tin Jarrin' aka Cando. ]
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 42
Kudos: 157





	The Art of Growing Things

**Author's Note:**

> More pointless fluff, but this time there is a bit of philosophical bullshit embellishing it. 😅

When the door of the cantina swings open, Greef expects to see one of his hunters saunter in with a valuable capture, and he's not entirely wrong.

He sits up from his table, leaving his accounting books to grin up at his approaching guest.

“Mando, my dear boy!” he exclaims, spreading his arms out in a warm welcome.

“Greef,” greets Mando with a nod. He has the kid propped up against his shoulder; the baby turns back and sends Greef a toothy grin. They both look good, as far as Green can tell, but who knows what Mando looks like under all that beskar.

“It's good to see you, at long last!” says Greef, shaking his hand. They've been in touch in the last few months and Greef knows the man has been busy in the Outer Rim with his search for the green baby's people. His visit is as welcome as unexpected.

“Any luck with your quest?”

“I have some contacts,” says Mando. “They'll get back to me in due time.”

Greef waits for him to elaborate, but that seems to be it. Mando's attention keeps straying around the cantina among the tables and the patrons, and Greef has a feeling he knows what he's looking for. Or rather _who._

Greef follows Mando's look around the room. Cara would be very easy to spot, if she were here: everyone in town is a little bit in love with her, these days.

“She's not here,” he says with a small, knowing smirk. “You here to meet her new boyfriend?”

A long pause of silence makes Greef frown. He turns back to Mando, but what he finds where his friend was standing is an empty spot.

A few feet away, the entrance door slams closed.

*

Din doesn't even know why he's so bothered by what Greef just told him.

He's been away for six months, any sort of things might have happened in his absence and Cara had a right to build herself a new life here, now that she's free. He realises he's in no way entitled to feel so bitter: he's the one who left without a word, after all. Still, there is this sharp puncture-like feeling deep in his chest, and it hurts more and more as he walks.

Finding Cara's place isn't hard. They've been in touch and she told him where she lives, but apparently she didn't deem the fact that she's met someone worth mentioning during one of their calls.

He remembers her house as it used to be years ago, a dull, gray block of concrete surrounded by iron fences swallowed by weeds. When he turns the corner, however, what he sees is freshly painted white peeking up from above a thick hedge that embraces the property much more gracefully than the weeds used to. The entrance gate is ajar.

Din approaches, wondering if perhaps he didn't get the location wrong. When he gets to the gate, though, there is no mistaking the voice humming softly from somewhere inside.

Din isn't sure what he came here for. Or, he _did_ know what he came for before Greef broke the news to him; now he feels his visit might be ill-timed, which makes the gate ridiculously hard to push open.

“Cara?” he calls, looking around. He spots her in a corner on his right, a pair of large scissors in her hand, trimming a plom bloom bush.

She turns around with a hand wiping some sweat off her forehead, the bright smile surfacing on her lips outshining the sun above.

“Hey, stranger.”

She's wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top stained with earth and lymph. Her skin has gained a remarkable tan, while her hair, on the contrary, looks a couple of shades lighter, probably bleached by the unrelenting sunshine of Nevarro. Unlike Greef, she knew he was coming and isn't surprised at all to see him.

Din closes the gate behind himself and takes in the explosion of colours surrounding him: yellows and oranges, bright pinks and purples, dozens of different hues of blue – Cara's favourite, of course.

Cara has turned the messy tangle of weeds and thorns that used to be this property into a lush garden.

“Hey,” he greets as Cara drops her scissors, wipes her hands into her tank top, and walks up to him with that trademark confident strut of hers that instantly reminds Din how much he's missed her.

The kid throws himself into Cara's arms before she and Din get to clasp their hands together; it makes her giggle, and though it's a sound Din only heard very few times before, he can't help thinking it's kind of addictive.

“How have you boys been?” asks Cara, trying to juggle the kid into a comfortable position, but he's so happy to be here he just can't stop squirming.

Din gives her the latest updates, informing her about the leads he found about the Jedi and how he's come across a few very interesting people who might be able to help them with the kid.

“They'll contact me in due time,” he explains, “as soon as they think it's safe enough. Gideon is gone but we don't know who else knew about his powers,” he adds with a nod towards the child. “For now, we can only wait.”

He keeps saying _we_ and wonders if Cara understands that _we_ involves her, too. He hopes she still considers herself as a part of the team, despite this long time apart – despite the undeniable effort she's been putting in making herself at home, here.

“So,” he begins tentatively. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, so her brings them to his hips. “Any news?”

“About what?”

One of Din's palms opens up and outward at his side in an awkward hint in Cara's direction. Her only response is her eyebrows raising quizzically at him.

“You,” Din sighs then.

Cara's nose scrunches is amusement.

“Me? What sort of news could I possibly have? I'm the same old me: hot, hot-headed, kicking ass for a living...”

Din ducks his head with another sigh. This is harder than anticipated, and either Cara is enjoying giving him a hard time or she really didn't think this guy she's met was worth mentioning to him.

“Greef told me about your...” an unwilling grimace twists his lips, “... boyfriend.”

Cara frowns in confusion.

“My-” she starts, but her face freezes for a moment, then an expression of comprehension slowly starts spreading over her face. “ _Oooh._ I see.”

She lets out a mild laugh that leaves Din a bit wounded. Her initial cluelessness gave him a shred of hope, which now falls to the ground among the sorry branch tips she's been cutting off her plants.

Din watches as Cara, utterly oblivious of his inner disappointment, keeps talking to the kid in a soft, little voice Din has never heard before. She seems as happy to see him as he is to see her.

“You didn't tell me,” Din hears himself mutter.

Cara turns to him with a glare that is only half playful.

“You didn't visit in six months.”

Fair point.

Din has no excuse: he could have visited, but he can't just tell her he refused to go back to her until he had some good news to bring, and now it seems like he's waited too long.

“I'm sorry. I should have-”

“I'm messing with you,” she laughs, poking the tip of a boot into his armoured shin. “You wanna meet him?”

“He's _here?”_

“He's _always_ here,” says Cara with a sultry smirk. “Come on in,” she adds, gesturing Din to follow her inside the house, “I'm sure you'll like him.”

Din tags along with a heavy throb in his heart.

He's _here._

He _lives_ here, apparently, and Cara is perfectly comfortable with that. Does this guy know about Din? And _what_ does he know, exactly? What did Cara tell him?

Din hates the idea of being the Mandalorian friend in the picture.

“You've settled down well,” he notes, gaping at the cosy atmosphere he finds inside: white walls, spare wooden furniture and a lack of clutter he finds comforting. Instead of useless objects, Cara filled this place with pieces of herself: a gym corner, several pots and vases hosting an impressive variety of plants and flowers, a small couch loaded with soft cushions and a coffee table before it whose surface is entirely covered by large map of the galaxy.

Din spots a familiar looking green-blue blanket crumpled up among the cushions: it's the one the villagers of Sorgan gave Cara after the defeat of the raiders. Din has one, too.

Cara stops in the middle of the living area, shrugging modestly as her gaze pans out across the room.

“It's not much but it's-” She trails off, stumbling before a word she can't quite bring herself to utter. She licks her lips, swallows, then tries again.

“It's a good place to come back to at the end of the day.”

_But it's not home._

She leaves it unspoken, but Din can hear it anyway. It's what her face says, even though she tries not to let it show. Din knows this feeling, this almost-slip: it's been of the tip of his tongue once or twice after the Purge and, like Cara, he could ever speak that word again after losing both his families. Except he kind of has a new family, now, and albeit it's true that he's been carrying a piece of home along with himself in these last few months – a fuzzy, green little piece – deep inside he's always had a feeling something was missing, that _home_ was not whole. Now that he's here, the reason behind this sense of incompleteness is rather apparent. Too bad it seems like he's come to this realisation a few months too late.

“I renovated the whole house by myself, you know,” Cara conveys proudly. Leaning behind her shoulder, the child is trying to catch the huge petals of a red and white flower as big as his face dangling before him from a pot that hangs from the ceiling. Cara steps away, scolding him gently.

“You did an impressive job,” says Din, a bit breathless. This place looks and _feels_ like home. He can't help wondering how far Cara and her guy are from moving in together, if they haven't already.

The thought of her finding her happiness here isn't as painful as the awareness that she's building this new life with somebody else. Somebody who once, maybe, could have been Din.

“Thanks,” beams Cara. “It was kinda fun. Kept me busy a lot of long, lonely nights after-”

She casts him a fleeting glance that is almost guilty, then her eyes dart away to avoid his inquiring look.

“There's still a lot to do, anyway,” she murmurs dismissively.

“No help from your boyfriend?” asks Din.

“He's not the sort of boyfriend who helps much around the house.” She glances back to give him an odd grin. “He kind of just... stands there, you know?”

Din can't quite believe his own ears. How can someone kind and hard-working like Cara be with someone who won't even lift a finger for her? She should know she deserves better than this. She should _want_ better than this, someone who works and sweats by her side and collapses in bed with her at the end of a long day, exhausted but content.

“He sounds like a jerk,” Din mumbles to himself. He thought Cara was out of earshot, but she spins around as he says it.

“Oh, for the love of-” she groans, then stops to let out an impatient sigh. The look on her face is both exasperated and strangely laced with mirth.

“Come with me, you idiot.”

She doesn't leave Din any time to ask questions: she just grabs his hand and drags him away. She heads towards a huge glass door spread out onto the back garden, which looks even richer and more colourful than the front one.

It doesn't even feel like Nevarro, here: the tall edge blocks the world outside and keeps a reverie-like atmosphere encased in this small but wonderful piece of paradise: the grass is thick and so green it barely looks real, but the scent of it mixed to the fragrance oozing from the myriad of flowers is a fairly convincing proof it's not a mirage.

Din can tell the arrangement of the flowerbeds wasn't planned so much as improvised: small pillows of minuscule lilac blossoms grow among the high stalks of a dozen sunflowers facing up high toward the sky; Rominaria and star flowers of all colours share a whole corner under the shade provided by a huge Moonbeam tree surrounded by large rocks. Din's heart skips a beat when he notices a particular flower that brings back childhood memories and an old melancholy that adds to the one seeing Cara here has been giving him.

His look is still wandering across the garden when an incongruous detail catches his eye: there's a cross-like thing made of wooden sticks impaled in the middle of a flowerbed containing a handful of blumfruit bushes loaded with ripe berries; on top of the vertical stick dangles a metal bucket, while draped across the horizontal one is a worn rag tossed by the light breeze.

Cara stands in front of it and observes it in satisfaction for a moment before shooting a suspiciously sly smirk Din's way.

“Meet my very special friend and gardening companion,” she announces, spreading an arm out toward what Din supposes is some sort of scarecrow. “Tin Jarrin'.”

The wind turns the bucket around, allowing Din to finally put two and two together – the wannabe cowl, the bucket, the silly name... Cara even bothered to paint a black T to represent his visor, and Din must grudgingly admit that the resemblance is uncanny.

He's not sure whether he should feel outraged or amused.

He turns to her with a slow, silent glare that leaves Cara utterly unaffected. In fact, her impish grin defiantly intensifies, dimples surfacing in her sun-kissed cheeks as she returns her look without a single hint of shame.

She's unfairly beautiful.

Seeing her like this makes him want to do things he couldn't possibly do with his helmet on, which is both a torture and a blessing.

“That's your boyfriend?”

His attempt to inject a decent amount of indignation in his voice crumbles in front of the genuine brightness of Cara's smile.

“Greef calls him that to mock me,” she says, observing the scarecrow with a look so loving it rises a lot of questions in Din's mind. “You know,” she continues sheepishly, “because I spend more time with him than I do with the people who buy me drinks at the cantina.”

“Are there many of them?”

“I have to admit I haven't paid for my own drinks in quite a while.” She shrugs. “It comes in handy.”

In her arms, the child is scrutinising the scarecrow intently, his big brown eyes scanning the thing up and down as his ears perk up curiously.

Din smiles and join the kid in his interested staring.

 _This is good,_ he thinks with a flare of smugness mingled with relief filling his soul. This is a boyfriend he's willing to accept. Excellent choice, in fact.

“Tin Jarrin',” he muses, crossing his arms with a light shake of his head. He doesn't even know why he's surprised.

“Actually,” Cara cuts in, “he prefers to go by Cando.”

Din nearly chokes.

He tries and fails spectacularly to hold himself back: a light laughter starts bubbling up from deep inside his chest and before he knows it's coming out in muffled, incredulous huff that seems to lift a heavy weight off his shoulders. He feels the corners of his mouth stretch out into a fond smile that makes his whole face – _his whole being_ feel warm and tingly.

_Cara Dune, indeed._

Din has no excuse for this long absence, but he swears to himself he's going to make up for it. He won't waste any more chances.

Cara grants his a minute to bask in this blissful state of solace, then nudges him with her hip and asks, “So, what do you think?”

“About Cando?”

“About my garden.”

She's laughing, and it's amazing. Din can feel the sound of her laugh crawl under his bruised skin, penetrate deep in his aching bones and wash months of tension away. No wonder all the medicines he's turned to to ease his sore body didn't work: he left the only effective remedy here on Nevarro.

“It's... beautiful,” he whispers, his eyes unable to leave Cara and her smiling face. She's still watching Cando with a wistful tilt to her head.

“I didn't think gardening was my thing until I started pulling the weeds out and planting actual flowers around,” she reveals. The child is trying to wiggle himself out of her arms, so she bends and sets him down to let him go explore. He's always loved nature and Din can't imagine a more entraining place for him.

“It's pretty rewarding once things start growing out,” Cara continues. She points to the corner facing West. “I even have fruits and vegetables over there.”

Din can see the love and the dedication she put into creating all of this. He pictures her kneeling on the ground, hands deep in the soil as she works it apart to make room for bulbs and seeds that slowly turned into this rainbow of petals. He smiles when he imagines her building Cando, struggling with the sticks and the binds, and something tugs at his heart at the idea of Cara picking up the metal bucket onto her lap to draw a parody of his visor. He would never admit it but, boyfriend or not, he might be slightly jealous of this garden.

“Hey!” Cara yells, hurrying to pry the child away from a particularly pretty spot filled with the cascading purple flowers that made Din's heart stop minutes ago. “Get your grabby paws off my favourite babies!”

“These are your favourite?”

There's an awed lilt in Din's tone while he says this. He can't help it: Cara doesn't know but his emotional attachment to these flowers is as deep as his own heart.

“Yeah,” she confirms, releasing the kid after making sure he won't try pulling out her flowers again. She stands back up and swipes a fond look over the blanket of purple floating above the green stems.

“ _Scutellaria Integrifolia._ It's native of Alderaan. There were entire fields of these back home.”

“Did you know," Din says, unable to keep a smile out of his tone, "that it's also called-”

“Helmet flower?” Cara offers behind a coy smile that makes Din blush with joy. This can't be a coincidence. None of this – the scarecrow, the flowers, her keeping a distance from all those people trying to get her attention...

“They were my Mandalorian mother's favourite, too,” he reveals, moved and stunned and something else he doesn't dare name. “I hadn't seen them in years.”

Cara looks down at her feet, casually drags a boot over the grass.

“I go to the bazaar and get a new plant every time I miss you.”

It strikes Din so hard he flinches, turning to Cara with his heart pulsing in the back of his throat. His eyes skitter around the garden, trying to count the amount of different plants and flowers inhabiting it, but there are tens, dozens of them. Too many to count.

Suddenly, Din can see the harsh bite of his own nostalgia painted in this graceful picture and all its gorgeous colours: while he sulked and pined and suffered in silence, Cara found a way to turn her loneliness into beauty, into life, into something good to surround herself with. And she put her very personal touch of humour in it with Cando's addition.

Din can hardly breathe.

So this is how much Cara missed him: not a few pots, not a flowerbed or two, but a whole, thriving garden.

“I have nothing to show you how much I missed you,” he says meekly.

They're standing side by side, immobile. Cara's hand brushes against is for a moment, her fingers seeking the empty spaces between his.

“It's okay,” she mutters softly. “I don't need to _see_ it.”

He lets his head hang and breathes out a long, happy sigh that could almost be a laugh. His fingers tighten around Cara's.

At their feet, this child is greedily plucking berries off the bushes around the scarecrow, occasionally stopping to cast meaningful looks up at them until they finally notice.

“Okay, little shit,” Cara giggles as she picks him up. “You're hungry, we get it.”

Not remotely remorseful, the kid extends his little arm out of her to feed her a handful of blumfruit mush, which Cara politely accepts despite the eerie look of it. Now both she and the kid have their mouths smudged with purple.

“You guys have plans for dinner?” she inquires, seeking Din's eyes through his visor.

“We have a few leftovers back on the Crest.”

Cara snorts.

“How about I make you a real dinner?”

There is hope in her look, which is a very accurate reflection of what Din feels inside of himself, too. The only problem is that this invitation involves a few significant issues.

He awkwardly gestures toward his helmet.

“I can't-”

“We can have a picnic here on the grass,” she argues. “If we eat back to back and I feed the kid, you can go without your bucket.”

The wind ruffles Tin Jarrin's cowl; his metal head bobs as though he's giving them some kind of encouraging nod.

If this isn't a sign...

“I'd like that,” says Din, both glad and miffed Cara can't see his stupidly blissful simper. “ _We'd_ like that,” he rectifies when the child lets out a coo of protest in his direction.

“You could stay here, you know,” says Cara, adjusting the kid in her embrace with a pensive expression, then adds, “if you're taking a break while waiting for news from your contacts. It's gonna take a bit of adjustment, but I'm sure we can manage. We've shared smaller spaces, after all.” Her purple lips stretch out into a grin. “What do you say?”

There's nothing else Din could ask for. It would be good for the kid, too, to have a stable place to live for for a while.

“I could help you with the remaining repairs,” he muses. It's just an excuse he wants to cling to convince himself he's not just doing this out of mere selfishness: she doesn't need his help, and he knows it. This is why it's twice as touching to hear her reply, “That would be nice.”

Twenty minutes later, while they're chopping down vegetables at the kitchen counter with the kid sitting between them to supervise – and occasionally steal chunks with his cheating tricks – Din pokes his elbow into Cara's side and asks, “You think this town is big enough for the two of us?”

Cara smiles without taking her eyes from her cutting board.

“The real question is: is this town big enough for you and Cando?”

Din raises a shoulder.

“Can do, I guess.”

As intended, the pun elicits a laugh from Cara, which quickly infects Din, and the child just titters along.

“That's the can-do attitude we need.”

Din lets this shroud of domesticity wrap him up in a warm, serene mood that, he's sure, won't easily go away, as long as he's here, and it's both wonderful and scary.

It's not staying here per se that concerns him; what he's worried about is that he'll never want to leave again, because there will come a time when they must leave again, and it's not going to be easy for any of them, but maybe, if he has the guts to ask her, Cara will go with him, next time.

  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> First of all, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Tin Jarrin' aka Cando, courtesy of the amazing [equivalent_exchange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/equivalent_exchange/pseuds/equivalent_exchange):
> 
>   
> Secondly, I didn't even know of the existence of Helmet Flowers until my sweet [Name1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name1/pseuds/Name1) told me about them, so that entire bit about Helmet Flowers exists because she enlightened me. ❤
> 
> I had the idea for this story while I was running and you guys should have seen me trying to take notes on my phone without stopping. It was hilarious and seriously life-threatening, but so worth it. 😃
> 
>  **I've noticed a severe decrease in fics and comments around here in the last few days, so please, I'm begging you, KEEP THE LOVE ALIVE. We're getting close to season 2, let's hold on together, okay? Write, comment, spread the love!** ❤


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